By Enitan Abdultawab
Former Premier League referee Mike Dean has revealed that he used to play secret “games” during matches, including seeing how long he could go without blowing his whistle.
Dean made the revelation while appearing on former Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy’s Having a Party podcast, where he admitted that he once went between 20 and 25 minutes without blowing his whistle during a Premier League match.
The 61-year-old, who officiated 553 Premier League matches between 2000 and 2022, said the challenge was something he and other officials did “as a laugh”.
“There used to be games that we used to have; as a laugh, we used to say, ‘Right, we’ll kick off now, right? See how long we can go without blowing a whistle’,” Dean said.
